The present invention relates to reading, encrypting and protecting information stored in association with a data card. This stored information can be securely transferred over a data network. Examples of data cards include credit cards, identification cards, or other similar cards.
The security of personal financial and identification information is an important concern for consumers. Such information commonly stored on data cards includes account numbers, expiration dates, the names of card users, identification numbers, or other information. Often phishing and spoofing scams are designed to acquire the personal financial information of everyday consumers from their personal data cards by fraud or by other deceptive means. Many of these schemes rely on the ability to extract information stored on the data cards using conventional magnetic read heads.